The campaign focuses on spreading awareness at the increasing social evil of trafficking of girls.

Bangalore, March 21, 2017: As part of its continuous efforts to stop human trafficking and spreading awareness amongst citizens and potential victims, APSA (Association for Promoting Social Action), in association with UST Global, has been doing a campaign by conducting street plays, mimes, messages on radio channels and social media. The campaign focused on spreading awareness at the increasing social evil of trafficking of children, particularly young girls and the impact on the child, family and society.

Last week, a street play was conducted in Jayanagar. A team from Nemmadi theatre group staged a Street Play to help children and their parents understand how young girls are easy targets for trafficking. According to NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau), Bengaluru tops the list in Karnataka, registering the maximum number of missing or kidnapping complaints. Mr. Nagaraj, Area Corporator, was present at the event.

Speaking at the event, P Lakshapathy, Executive Director & Founder, APSA, said, “Our last year’s 16-day campaign on ‘Every8Minutes’ was received very well. This year, we continue to motivate the public to report incidents of trafficking and child abuse. Out of the 100 girls who go missing, only 64% of the cases get reported and there is trace or report of the remaining 36%. Many girls are cheated on the pretext of job or marriage and are pushed into prostitution. We request our citizens to be alert and either call the police on 100 or report an incident to us at our Child Helpline center 1098. We thank UST Global who has been our partner organization in spreading the awareness.”

Sheila Devaraj, Director, APSA,said, “It is alarming to learn that India is a source, destination and transit country for men, women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. We, at APSA, have been working continuously to not only save the children and youth of India, but also spreading awareness on how common people can contribute and help to this cause.”

Sudhansu Panigrahi, GM & Center Head, Bangalore, UST Global, said, “UST Global has been proudly associated with APSA to spread the awareness on ‘Stop Human Trafficking’ from 2015. According to a recent report by NCRB, every eight minutes a child goes missing in India; and of about 3 million sex workers in India, 40% are children aged under 18. It is time we all come together and fight this in our own little way. I urge everyone to be alert and report any incidents they come across.”

The key message is a request to all the citizens to be alert and report any incidents to the child helpline number 1098 or to the police helpline number 100.

Amongst the many activities during the course of the campaign, was a street play at Bal Bhavan in Cubbon Park. On Children’s day, at the special program hosted by the Bangalore City Police Commissioner, APSA staged another street play and volunteers from UST Global had performed a mime, both of which were well received. On social media, primarily on Twitter & Facebook, the campaign has managed to create a potential reach of 10L+. The hashtags were #JoinHandswithAPSA and #JoinHandswithHands.